MADRID — Pedro Sánchez sees an opening in Brussels — and he intends for Spain to fill it.
Less than six months after taking power, the Socialist prime minister is leading in national polls and looking to raise his international profile, in part by claiming a stronger role for his country on the European stage, alongside Germany and France.
With the U.K. leaving the EU, Italy’s populist government in a standoff with Brussels over budget rules, Poland’s in a dispute over rule of law, and migration still the central policy fight among EU members, there’s a place at the EU top table up for grabs.
“Spain has to claim its role,” Sánchez told POLITICO during an interview at Moncloa Palace, the government headquarters.
“I declare myself a militant pro-European,” he said, sitting on a white leather chair beneath a painting by Joan Miró. “I believe that the challenge facing the EU is to write a new social contract that we are not going to be able to build or write at the level of the member states, and we have to do it at a joint level, at the level of the EU. And in that sense, with the misfortune of Brexit, with the anti-Europeanism that Italy, the Italian government, is showing right now, I believe that … the axis that should be articulated is that of Berlin, Paris, Madrid — to which I would also add Lisbon.”
Sánchez’s push at the European stage contrasts with his fragility at home, where he heads a government with the smallest parliamentary backing in Spain’s democratic history — casting doubt over his ability to achieve anything meaningful in Brussels. While Sánchez’s international approach could help burnish his credentials as a statesman, he’s never won a general election (although most observers predict he will try to do so next year).
Sánchez is under fire from the conservative Popular Party and the liberal Ciudadanos while relying on difficult, ad-hoc agreements with the far-left Podemos and regional parties from the Basque country and Catalonia to get anything done in Congress. Adding to his problems at home are the many U-turns and apparently ill-conceived initiatives that his Cabinet has been forced to rectify since June.
Sánchez has, however, demonstrated that he knows how to capitalize where his influence is potentially greatest. He put himself at the forefront of the immigration debate in June by accepting refugees when other countries refused. And he has spoken out against Brexit — telling POLITICO he would favor a second referendum — undeterred by the inevitable critical comparisons to Madrid’s handling of Catalan separatists.
Dialogue and disputes
Catalonia remains Sánchez’s Achilles’ heel, both at the national and the international level.
The Spanish leader has adopted a softer approach than his conservative predecessor Mariano Rajoy on the rebellious region. He advocates dialogue and greater autonomy as a way out of the conflict. He has also left the door open to granting pardons to the 18 Catalan leaders who will face trial before the Supreme Court for last year’s secession push — which saw an illegal referendum and declaration of independence. They could be sentenced to decades in prison.
“I can’t pronounce myself on the eventual use of that instrument,” Sánchez said. “But I say one thing: Pardons exist because they’re a constitutional mechanism.”
Earlier this year, Sánchez seized on a corruption case involving former officials from the PP to call a no-confidence vote against Rajoy — the first time a sitting Spanish leader has been toppled from power by parliament. Secessionist lawmakers backed that motion of no confidence and the Socialist leader has relied on their support to pass some bills in the parliament. The government has also called on them to back the national budget proposal for 2019, something they’ve vowed not to do.
Catalonia’s new pro-independence Cabinet led by Quim Torra has so far refrained from openly defying the law, but Torra maintains an aggressive rhetoric against the Spanish state, which he describes as driven by an “insatiable spirit of revenge.”
Elsa Artadi, the Catalan government spokesperson and a regional minister, said there is no difference between the Rajoy and Sánchez administrations regarding Catalonia, citing ongoing “repression” against pro-independence leaders. “The only difference is that the words were more amiable in the first months [of Sánchez’s mandate]. But there has been no change regarding the deeds.”
While Catalan secessionists can’t bring Sánchez’s government down, they can make life difficult for him in Congress — for instance, derailing the PM’s plans for a fresh budget with increased social spending. Also, given Spaniards’ views on the issue — more than half back the jailing of Catalan officials and 49 percent advocate reimposing direct rule on the region, according to a recent survey by La Vanguardia — the crisis could affect the Socialist leader’s electoral prospects if he is seen as too soft on the separatists.
The opposition sees fertile ground in Sánchez’s softer approach and the separatists’ confrontational tone. The PP and Ciudadanos advocate reimposing direct rule and are waging a fierce campaign against the Socialist leader, whom they accuse of kneeling before the separatists.
They also accuse the prime minister of using his seat at La Moncloa to wage a long, costly electoral campaign and portray him as someone who’s willing to retain power –and its privileges— at any cost.
“Sánchez has decided to break with constitutional-minded parties and turn populists and nationalists into his allies,” said Ciudadanos leader Albert Rivera. “He’s opted for the [British Labour leader Jeremy] Corbyn way … while Ciudadanos is in convergence with [French President Emmanuel] Macron’s liberal democrats.”
However, Sánchez accuses the PP and Ciudadanos of moving toward the far right. He said he’s “really worried” about Vox — a far-right party which has never won a seat in parliament, but is rising in polls — because “parties like the PP and Ciudadanos are assimilating the far-right strategy and rhetoric.”
Grégory Claeys, a researcher for Bruegel, a think tank, said Madrid may have felt the negative effects of the Catalan crisis on the European stage at the peak of the independence push last year, but no more. “Now it’s barely discussed in Brussels and I don’t think it plays any major role,” he said.
Style overhaul
At times it was not clear if Rajoy, Spanish prime minister for more than six years, felt held back in Brussels more by the country’s economic crisis and the controversy in Catalonia or by what rivals portrayed as his disinterest in European affairs, his lack of English and evident discomfort in front of the international press.
What is clear is that Sánchez feels no such constraints. He has lived in New York, earned a degree in politics and economics from the Free University in Brussels, worked as an assistant in the European Parliament, and served as adviser to the United Nations high representative in Bosnia.
Where other insurgent leaders might have kept their focus on home affairs after pulling off the no-confidence vote against Rajoy, Sánchez quickly made clear that leading a minority government would not hold him back. Days after taking office in June, Sánchez announced that Spain would accept more than 600 migrants who were stranded aboard the rescue ship Aquarius, after Malta and Italy refused to accept them.
It immediately won Sánchez plaudits in Brussels.
Sánchez has also benefitted from adopting what might be viewed as the political equivalent of the tiki-taka strategy that turned Spain’s football teams into the world’s best. Unlike Macron, who rushed onto the European stage with a bold agenda, only to be quickly swatted down by fellow leaders, Sánchez has spread the field and picked his moments.
Italy’s budget standoff with Brussels provides such a moment — for Sánchez to side with Brussels and push back against Italy’s Matteo Salvini and others criticizing the EU by noting that the budget rules being enforced by the European Commission are rules that Italy itself helped draw up.
“What you cannot do is question the Stability and Growth Pact [the EU’s fiscal rules]. I know that the EC is being enormously flexible, but also clear about the need to comply with the rules. In the end, these rules were not imposed on Italy or Spain. We have given them to each other … We must therefore comply with them.”
Sánchez also criticized Austria, which holds the rotating presidency of the EU, for refusing to sign the U.N. global compact on migration — the first international, non-binding treaty on migration. “It seems to me a mistake,” he said, adding: “I believe that the EU must move forward and unfortunately no steps are being taken in terms of migration policy.”
As a champion of stronger cooperation on migration, reform of the eurozone with greater integration on monetary policy, and other center-left policies that have fallen out of favor in many countries across Europe, Sánchez — virtually overnight — has become the most prominent social democratic politician in Europe, ahead of Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa and Sweden’s Stefan Löfven (who’s now running the country in caretaker mode).
Asked if he feels the responsibility of such leadership, Sánchez replied: “No doubt about it.”
As for the decline of the center left across Europe, Sánchez said: “We must never stop believing. Social democracy is more alive than ever in Europe despite the fact that the number of social democratic governments has fallen.”
Brexit mistake
Just as Sánchez has not rushed in on many issues, he has not overplayed his hand on Brexit — an issue on which Spain has much at stake.
In the interview with POLITICO, which took place the week before the draft divorce deal between the U.K. and the EU was unveiled, Sánchez warned that no good would come from Brexit.
He also advised his British counterpart Theresa May to call a second Brexit referendum “in the future,” so that the U.K. could return to the European club “in another way.”
He’s already raised the voice against the draft Withdrawal Agreement between the EU and the U.K. Madrid wants to have an explicit legal guarantee that the agreement on the future relationship won’t be applied to Gibraltar unless Madrid allows that to happen.
“As of today, if there are no changes with respect to Gibraltar, Spain will vote no to the agreement on Brexit,” Sánchez said at an event in Madrid Tuesday.
The Spanish leader said he will put on the table the issue of “shared sovereignty” over Gibraltar during the negotiations on the future relationship between the U.K. and the EU.
“Shared sovereignty is something we need to talk about, as is the issue of the airport [the joint use of which was dropped from the first stage of negotiations],” Sánchez said, adding that he expects these “sensitive issues” could be dealt with “in a bilateral negotiation” between the U.K. and Spain during the transition period.
The idea of shared rule was discussed in the early 2000s — and overwhelmingly rejected by the people of Gibraltar in a referendum in 2002.
It’s the sort of historical issue that Sánchez would clearly relish tackling, but that will probably have to wait until he wins a national election — if he wins a national election. Polls suggest that he would, and Sánchez seems to be eyeing 2019 as the year to put his popularity to test. But in the interview, he wouldn’t commit.
Asked if he knew when he planned to call an election, Sánchez laughed and said: “I have an idea.”